Christophe,
You might look at our review (Hatfield and Gutman, Codon pair utilization
bias in bacteria, yeast and mammals, in Transfer RNA in Protein Synthesis,
Hatfield, Lee and Pirtle, editors, CRC Press, 1992), which discusses the
possible role of biased usage of codon nearest neighbors in regulating
translational step times for folding, etc. Selection for particular codon
pairs (nearest neighbors) could be manifested by the presence of otherwise
rare and unexpected codons.
George Gutman
*****************************************************************
* George A. Gutman *
* Department of Microbiology Tel:(714)824-6593 *
* and Molecular Genetics FAX:(714)824-8598 *
* University of California INTERNET: GAGUTMAN at UCI.EDU *
* Irvine CA 92717 *
*****************************************************************
